Local News

State releases first reports on teacher scores

Marc Valero | Highlands Today
Published: December 6, 2012

SEBRING - The Florida Department of Education released the first status report on district personnel evaluations on Wednesday, but Highlands is one of only four districts that has not yet submitted any evaluation information to the state.

Most districts submitted the majority of their classroom teacher evaluations to the state by the report's Nov. 30 deadline. Overall the report includes 74.2 percent of the state's classroom teacher evaluations.

Highlands Human Resources Director Vivianne Waldron said some districts sent "something" to the state, but it wasn't accurate and some of those districts, including Polk, are now having challenges with the teachers union due to the inaccuracies.

"We weren't willing to do that," she said. The FDOE told her last week and Monday that a number of districts have not yet submitted the evaluations.

The district informed the FDOE it would send the data before the winter break (Dec. 20), Waldron said. Initially the state promised the media it would have a report by Dec. 1, so it put out this preliminary report.

The state report lists the percentage of teachers in five performance categories: highly effective, effective, needs improvement, developing (a new teacher with one to three years on the job who needs improvement) and unsatisfactory.

The statewide percentage of classroom teachers in each category is: 22.2 percent highly effective, 74.5 percent effective, 1.9 percent needs improvement, 1 percent developing and .3 percent unsatisfactory.

Among the state's 67 school districts, many had percentages that varied widely from the state averages.

Flagler (90.2 percent), Baker (84.3 percent) and Leon (84.3 percent) led 11 counties with high percentages of teachers (above 50 percent) rated highly effective.

"Do you think they over-inflated just a tad there?" Waldron said. Districts had a common challenge statewide with a higher percentage of over-inflated ratings.

FDOE data shows Polk County with 8.7 percent rated highly effective and 91.3 percent effective, but zero percent in the needs improvement, developing and unsatisfactory categories.

Charlotte and Monroe counties are two of only five districts that have submitted 100 percent of their teacher evaluations data to the FDOE. One hundred percent of Charlotte's and Monroe's teachers receiving an effective rating.

At the other end of the spectrum, Franklin County's teachers and teachers union are likely in an uproar with 66.2 percent of the teachers receiving a needs improvement rating.

Waldron estimated that Highlands will have about 25-30 percent highly effective, 50-60 percent effective, 10 percent needs improvement and 1 percent unsatisfactory.

The statewide school administrator ratings were: 21.9 percent highly effective, 72.1 percent effective, 5.5 percent needs improvement, .1 percent developing and .5 percent unsatisfactory.

Six counties — Charlotte, Martin, Monroe, Polk, Putnam and Union — gave all their school administrators an effective rating.

The FDOE stated that when districts complete their final data reporting, an updated report will be issued in January.

The individual teacher ratings will not be released publicly, Waldron said. According to state statute, the performance ratings for the current and preceding year will not be released to the public.

mvalero@highlandstoday.com (863) 386-5826